Transcendentalism was a movement in philosophy, literature, and religion that emerged and was popular in the nineteenth century New England because of a need to redefine man and his place in the world in response to a new and changing society. The industrial revolution, universities, westward expansion, urbanization and immigration all made the life in a city like Boston full of novelty and turbulence. Transcendentalism was a reaction to an impoverishment of religion and mechanization of consciousness of eighteenth century rational doctrines that ceased to be satisfying. After the success of the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, an American...
west. He became the symbol of the political power of the common people in the United States. He brought local autonomy, free public education for all, and universal suffrage. Most of his supporters were members of the renamed Democratic party, founded originally by Thomas Jefferson. Jacksonian democracy stressed both equality and individualism.

Transcendentalism served as a metaphysical basis to explain and justify newfound democracy. The need for reconciliation of expansive and contracting impulses of transcendentalism is similar to democracy, where a person needs to realize without sacrificing both his need for liberty egoistic tendency and his goal of equality.